Re: Few vs. a few

On Oct 31, 2007, at 2:32 PM, Edgard Bikelis wrote:

> Hi!
>
> On 10/29/07, caeruleancentaur <caeruleancentaur@...> wrote:
>>
>> I notice a difference in connotation in these two expressions.  "A
>> few
>> people attended the meeting," means simply that there was a small
>> number in attendance.  "Few people attended the meeting" connotes a
>> certain disappointment: "There were not as many people in
>> attendance as
>> we had expected."
>
>
> Well, once a romanian friend corrected me, saying that "a few" means
> something like "not few ~ many" and "few" means just "few". As
> neither of us
> is a native speaker, this information is not that canonical ; ).
> But see:
>
> Quite a few cats are flying over my house ~ many cats.
> Quite few cats &c &c ~ few cats.
That's a peculiarity of using "few" with "quite", though. Also, I
think there's a gradation in meaning between "few cats", "quite a few
cats", and "many cats"; "quite a few" means there are a non-
negligible or appreciable number, though not necessarily a large one.
"Quite few" doesn't sound completely natural, but I think if I ran
across it I would interpret it as meaning "a very small number
(though more than one or maybe even two)".

>
> How do you handle this in your conlangs, especially if your conlang
> has
>> no indefinite article.
>>
>> Or in any natlang you may know.  I wonder of "Poca gente
>> asistieron en
>> la reunion" conveys both meanings.
>
>
> Is "poca gente asistieron" grammatical? It screams "wrooong!" to my
> portuguese ears: "pouca gente assistiu".
>
> Charlie
>
>
> Edgard.